County Board of Supervisors ventures forward on study of Aptos developments

APTOS - Faced with growing rancor about a series of looming development ideas in Aptos, the Santa Cruz County Board of Supervisors on Tuesday asked county staff to take a hard look at four prime development sites there and what might become of them.

In doing so, the board eschewed more specific actions, including a building moratorium. Instead, the county will try to convince owners of four properties, all within a quarter-mile of the State Park Drive exit off Highway 1, to delay any development proposals and pay for a traffic analysis that could shape the future of the town.

"That's sort of the next step. We'll go back and talk to these property owners-slash-potential applicants and see whether they're interested in moving forward or not," said county Planning Director Kathy Molloy-Previsich.

The four sites are Rancho del Mar Shopping Center, a deep parcel across the street from Rancho Del Mar that now includes several businesses, a former par-three golf course and a Seacliff site once home to nuns known as the Poor Clares site, for which a developer envisions a 100-room hotel, 15,000 square feet of retail space, conference space and single-family homes.

The traffic analysis, tentatively dubbed the Aptos Focus plan, could piggyback on an ongoing planning study of Soquel Drive. Molloy-Previsich said developers could then pay for any needed traffic improvements when they submit development proposals.

At Tuesday's meeting, the board declined to alter broader planning policies that county staff said could be impeding economic activity. Those include affordable housing requirements specific to the Aptos properties and unusually stringent coastal development restrictions.

"I'm really concerned that those are really big issues and should not be tacked on to the end of this Aptos Focus plan," said Supervisor Ellen Pirie, who represents Aptos.

None of the ideas would affect the Aptos Village Plan, which is coming up for final county approval in the next few months.

A representative of Rancho del Mar owner Safeway Inc., which wants to reconfigure the 1960s-era strip mall, offered tepid support for the plan. So did Bill Tysseling, executive director of the Santa Cruz Area Chamber of Commerce, who said developments mean jobs and economic activity.

"We are acquiescent to the proposal as it's been presented today. We're not quite sure what it is," Tysseling said, a nod to fact that the idea seems to still be developing. "If it's vision, that's great. If it's delay, that's not so good."

Molloy-Previsich said a developer has an option on the Poor Clares property and related a sketch of the plan to the board, though she declined to name who it is. The parcel is owned by Dominican Hospital.

Molloy-Previsich said piggybacking on the ongoing Soquel Drive corridor study would give residents a chance to weigh in on how they want the sites developed.

But Bill Parkin, an attorney for a newly organized group of neighbors calling itself the Aptos Council, cautioned that the process could become hijacked by developers.

"Aptos people don't want Aptos to change," Parkin said. "People are starting to become galvanized. It's becoming a real issue."